Why SWTOR is more of a Single-Player game than an MMO

[lycrates]

I see some people wondering why many of the players feel that SWTOR is less of an MMO and more of a Single-Player/Co-op game.

 

In my opinion, here is why:

 

1) in SWTOR you are worse off if other players are also questing in the same area: The quest mechanics are such that other players can steal your kill or delay you from reaching your objective;

 

2) to solve this problem, Bioware has implemented Sharding, which makes it so that there is never a decent amount of people around;

 

3) furthermore, the gameworld is designed as a series of corridors that segregates people;

 

4) and finally the game works against you if you would like to find groups. In fact there are no tools to help you in creating a group. Spamming chat is the only way to find other people.

 

I think all these factors come together and make SWTOR feel very Single-Player/Co-op player-ish.

 

Am I wrong? What do you think?

[LoL-K-Noob]

"Feel" and "is" are too different things.

[JediMasterRyanW]

"Why SWTOR is more of a Single-Player game than most MMOs"

 

Fixed. You can still group up/hang out whenever you want with people you meet in the world, and there's Heroic Quests, Flashpoints, Operations, and PvP.

[Beevman]

youre wrong. Lets break it down

 

Massive universe based on star wars

Multiplayer mechanics, most planets have atleast 5 group quests that cannot be solo'd

Online game that lets me play with tons of people and friends

[Noth]

I see some people wondering why many of the players feel that SWTOR is less of an MMO and more of a Single-Player/Co-op game.

 

In my opinion, here is why:

 

1) in SWTOR you are worse off if other players are also questing in the same area: The quest mechanics are such that other players can steal your kill or delay you from reaching your objective;

 

This happens in all MMOs. Not SWTOR specific. In fact that lends itself to being a MMO.

 

2) to solve this problem, Bioware has implemented Sharding, which makes it so that there is never a decent amount of people around;

 

I see people all the time on evry planet I go to. No idea what you are talking about here.

 

3) furthermore, the gameworld is designed as a series of corridors that segregates people;

 

Get to tatooine and beyond.

 

4) and finally the game works against you if you would like to find groups. In fact there are no tools to help you in creating a group. Spamming chat is the only way to find other people.

 

There are tools just no one uses them. Educate your self to the LFG function of the who window.

 

I think all these factors come together and make SWTOR feel very Single-Player/Co-op player-ish.

 

None of those factors mean it is not an MMOs. Some of those factors are flat out false.

 

Am I wrong? What do you think?

 

Yes you are wrong.

Edited January 7, 2012 by Noth

[Kunitsukami]

Oh for crying out loud again?! People have answered this a million times you ranty little goose.

 

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, and it adheres to every word in that.

[Griminal]

In before fanboys

 

Edit: Too late

[KiallTOR]

i dont know if it is the same OP, but this an exact copy of the same thread from a week ago maybe..

 

why do it again?

[Amandeep]

Using all your reasons. Wow is no longer a mmo, but a co-op game with a lobby, and rift is the only title out there that is a real mmo with a decent player base.

[Beevman]

In before fanboys

 

Edit: Too late

 

not fanboys, more like people that arent ignorant to facts.

[Skoll]

"Feel" and "is" are too different things.

 

You meant to say "two", right?

[NinjaRockStar]

It feels like a single player game in the sense that questing can mostly be done alone, and the class quest for each class is meant to be done alone. However, multiplayer heroics, flashpoints, and warzones make it feel like an MMO.... So I guess what it comes down to is if you want to be a solo player than do solo content, if you want to interact with others just try to find heroic groups or do warzones. I don't know what people expect? Do they want the game to force people to group together?

[Mashy]

I see some people wondering why many of the players feel that SWTOR is less of an MMO and more of a Single-Player/Co-op game.

 

In my opinion...

 

Stopped reading there. If it's a coop single player game or whatever then why are you posting? Go back to WoW where world PvP is rampant and nothing is boring... God I am sick of these threads and this attitude.

[Grotpar]

The OP's post hurts my brain.

 

Is this your first MMO?

[JediMasterRyanW]

You meant to say "two", right?

 

No, he meant they are too different to be used interchangeably.

[Andryah]

I see some people wondering why many of the players feel that SWTOR is less of an MMO and more of a Single-Player/Co-op game.

 

In my opinion, here is why:

 

1) in SWTOR you are worse off if other players are also questing in the same area: The quest mechanics are such that other players can steal your kill or delay you from reaching your objective;

 

2) to solve this problem, Bioware has implemented Sharding, which makes it so that there is never a decent amount of people around;

 

3) furthermore, the gameworld is designed as a series of corridors that segregates people;

 

4) and finally the game works against you if you would like to find groups. In fact there are no tools to help you in creating a group. Spamming chat is the only way to find other people.

 

I think all these factors come together and make SWTOR feel very Single-Player/Co-op player-ish.

 

Am I wrong? What do you think?

 

In reviewing this thread post, it has come to my attention that you appear to have plagiarized all of the content from other /complainers in this forum. This may be a violation of fair use laws if you did not seek their permission before cutting and pasting their work AND give them credit for what you copied.

 

That said, I find all of your claims to be inaccurate, which is what tipped me off that you appeared to be plagiarizing from others on this topic.

[Mattdontbeahero]

I beg to differ.

 

1) in SWTOR you are worse off if other players are also questing in the same area: The quest mechanics are such that other players can steal your kill or delay you from reaching your objective;

 

I thinkt he quests are designed as such that if you're simply looting corpses or killing groups of enemies to complete objectives that they are abundent enough (and spawn quickly enough) so that even if there's a lot of people questing in the area, everyone has a fair shot at killing and collecting what they need and not having to wait long for doing so.

Quests that involve killing bosses or specific objectives normally put you in a specific area, or as you said Sharding, so that way unless they're in your group they can't just walk up and stealyour kills.

 

2) to solve this problem, Bioware has implemented Sharding, which makes it so that there is never a decent amount of people around.

 

I don't know if this is a statement of fact or a complaint, but seeing as how it has its own number, I'm assuming it's a complaint. Again, if you want to quest as a group and enter these zones, you can. But to complain about too many people kill stealing, then saying there's not enough people in these sharding zones, that sounds very hypocritical to me.

 

3) furthermore, the gameworld is designed as a series of corridors that segregates people.

 

Really? I find their world to be a lush piece of eye candy. Sure, they don't have the massive land mass areas you'd find in WoW, but needless walking around with no sights to see is worse than a few linear-esc areas that somewhat guide you on where you need to go rather than just forcing you to walk around for no reason.

 

4) and finally the game works against you if you would like to find groups. In fact there are no tools to help you in creating a group. Spamming chat is the only way to find other people.

 

There actually is a tool, under /who that you can place a purple marker next to your name, so people will know you're looking for a group. I know the game has only been out a few weeks, but these are the kinds of things that show up on the tool tips on a loading screen. >.>

[princey]

 

2) to solve this problem, Bioware has implemented Sharding, which makes it so that there is never a decent amount of people around;

 

 

It seems to me they are phasing out sharding, just like they said they were going to. Right now, on Ebon Hawk, there are 174 people on Dromund Kaas, and there is only ONE instance of the planet.

Edited January 7, 2012 by princey

[Andryah]

It seems to me they are phasing out sharding, just like they said they were going to. Right now, on Ebon Hawk, there are 174 people on Dromund Kaas, and there is only ONE instance of the planet.

 

Yeah it looks like they are. Sharding was to prevent crowd overruns on content in the early days of the game. Other MMOs have done this too, and BW appears to have done a better job of it, and you could move across shards to group if you had the IQ to understand that you had a LFG in the social tab.

 

And I appreciate that they did sharding and that it can be dynamically adjusted by them based on population density. Nobody wants to queue up in a line to kill/gather a quest target in a modern MMO.

Edited January 7, 2012 by Andryah

[Seifz]

I beg to differ.

 

1) in SWTOR you are worse off if other players are also questing in the same area: The quest mechanics are such that other players can steal your kill or delay you from reaching your objective;

 

I thinkt he quests are designed as such that if you're simply looting corpses or killing groups of enemies to complete objectives that they are abundent enough (and spawn quickly enough) so that even if there's a lot of people questing in the area, everyone has a fair shot at killing and collecting what they need and not having to wait long for doing so.

Quests that involve killing bosses or specific objectives normally put you in a specific area, or as you said Sharding, so that way unless they're in your group they can't just walk up and stealyour kills.

 

2) to solve this problem, Bioware has implemented Sharding, which makes it so that there is never a decent amount of people around.

 

I don't know if this is a statement of fact or a complaint, but seeing as how it has its own number, I'm assuming it's a complaint. Again, if you want to quest as a group and enter these zones, you can. But to complain about too many people kill stealing, then saying there's not enough people in these sharding zones, that sounds very hypocritical to me.

 

You're confusing sharding with instancing. The little green doorways lead you to instances. Shards are different. When the population of a planet exceeds a set threshold, a second copy of that planet is launched and players who arrive in the future will be sent to this second instance. Sharding is used to combat the problem that the OP described in point 1.

 

Sharding is a poor solution, though. While it might solve the intended problem, it creates a new problem where worlds start to feel empty because the players are separated too much. Blizzard's solution is better. NPCs, monsters, and quest items respawn at a rate proportional to the number of players killing/using them.

[ViceGat]

I see some people wondering why many of the players feel that SWTOR is less of an MMO and more of a Single-Player/Co-op game.

 

In my opinion, here is why:

 

1) in SWTOR you are worse off if other players are also questing in the same area: The quest mechanics are such that other players can steal your kill or delay you from reaching your objective;

 

2) to solve this problem, Bioware has implemented Sharding, which makes it so that there is never a decent amount of people around;

 

3) furthermore, the gameworld is designed as a series of corridors that segregates people;

 

4) and finally the game works against you if you would like to find groups. In fact there are no tools to help you in creating a group. Spamming chat is the only way to find other people.

 

I think all these factors come together and make SWTOR feel very Single-Player/Co-op player-ish.

 

Am I wrong? What do you think?

 

 

The strange thing is, on the old forums, I said I was worried about the game feeling more like a single player than an MMO after reading about it's features. And when I said that, all the other posts attacked me and said I was nuts for thinking such a thing. Some of those same posters are now calling it a single player game.

[Noth]

You're confusing sharding with instancing. The little green doorways lead you to instances. Shards are different. When the population of a planet exceeds a set threshold, a second copy of that planet is launched and players who arrive in the future will be sent to this second instance. Sharding is used to combat the problem that the OP described in point 1.

 

Sharding is a poor solution, though. While it might solve the intended problem, it creates a new problem where worlds start to feel empty because the players are separated too much. Blizzard's solution is better. NPCs, monsters, and quest items respawn at a rate proportional to the number of players killing/using them.

 

You apparently weren't around during launch of any expansion in WoW. No rate of spawning could keep up with the number of players. They would have to literally respawn instantly to keep up and they never did. Vashir was the biggest cluster**** I've ever seen in a game to date.

[Oneirophrenia]

The 2 months I spent playing WoW after some of my rl friends finally convinced me to try it out, I went from 1-60 without ever actually "needing" a group. Occasionally a friend would drop in to chit-chat on my progress or buff me up but that was it. Once I hit 60, I participated in a guild raid on some black dragon in a swamp and quit WoW soon after without even trying for level 70. Been there, done that, not much different from other MMOs I've played. Now in contrast, I have joined or started no less than 100+ groups for heroics and flashpoints in TOR. I don't even have a level 50 character yet (addicted to alts).

 

By that logic, is WoW a even more single player oriented game than SWTOR?

[HeroXx]

You apparently weren't around during launch of any expansion in WoW. No rate of spawning could keep up with the number of players. They would have to literally respawn instantly to keep up and they never did. Vashir was the biggest cluster**** I've ever seen in a game to date.

 

The difference is, it might suck at the start of the game but when it gets to the point where people are mostly at the endgame stuff it will be much better than sharding.

Edited January 7, 2012 by HeroXx

[Noth]

The difference is, it might suck at the start of the game but when it gets to the point where people are mostly at the endgame stuff it will be much better than sharding.

 

You aren't paying attention to this game then. They are phasing out the sharding. Had over 100 people on Drommund Kass and only 1 shard. Bioware's idea has worked a ton better.